Former Taiwan head coach Gary White yesterday was victorious on his return to the Taipei Municipal Stadium with Hong Kong, as James McKee and substitute Chung Wai-keung scored the goals in a 2-1 victory for the visitors in front of 1,193 supporters in their EAFF Championship second-round qualifying match.
In a tight first half, the visitors created the first opportunity in the 11th minute, when McKee missed a chance from an Alessandro Ferreira cross.
Taiwan came close four minutes later when goalkeeper Yapp Hung-fai saved a Wu Chun-ching header.
Hong Kong almost opened the scoring when a Festus Baise header was cleared off the line and then five minutes later when Paul Ngue got free inside the penalty area, but lifted his effort over the bar.
Hong Kong finally found the back of the net in the 65th minute when McKee converted a header at the back post.
The visitors should have been further ahead four minutes later when Baise somehow managed to lift the ball over the bar from point-blank range.
Taiwan equalized in the 81st minute when the ball fell to Chen Ting-yang during a scramble in the Kong Kong penalty area and the Taiwanese player kept his cool to slot the ball home.
However, the home supporters’ joy was short-lived when Chung fired home from the right side of the penalty area three minutes later.
Taiwan had an opportunity to grab a point with the last kick of the match, but substitute Will Donkin failed to trouble the goalkeeper when his shot flew wide.
“We had many chances in the first half, but our players did not put the game away. Then in the second half, we seized the opportunity and battled back for the winning goal, so I am just happy to get the win,” White said in the post-game interview.
“We knew it would be a difficult game, because Taiwan has fantastic players and they are fighters,” he added.
“We came here to get our job done and it’s good to get this first win against Taiwan, because North Korea and Hong Kong are the favorites to advance, and we have to do better in our next two games,” White said.
“We only had five days of getting the players together for training,” Taiwan head coach Wang Chia-chung said. “It showed in this game, and our players lacked the experience, where they lost possession and made errors in marking the opposition, resulting in giving up the second goal.”
In the earlier match, favorites North Korea ran out 4-1 winners over Mongolia.
TIGHT GAME: The Detroit Pistons, the NBA’s second-best team, barely outlasted the Washington Wizards, who fell to an NBA-worst 1-10 with their ninth consecutive loss Cade Cunningham’s triple double, Daniss Jenkins’ three-pointer at the buzzer and Javonte Green’s overtime dunk lifted Detroit past Washington 137-135 on Monday, stretching the Pistons’ win streak to seven games. In an unexpected thriller, the NBA’s second-best team barely outlasted a Wizards club that fell to an NBA-worst 1-10 with their ninth consecutive loss. “We knew how big this game was for us,” Jenkins said. “We wasn’t going to let nothing stop us from getting this W.” Cunningham made 14-of-45 shots and 16-of-18 free throws for a career-high 46 points, and added 12 rebounds, 11 assists, five steals and two
With a hat-trick on Wednesday, Victor Osimhen moved atop the UEFA Champions League scoring table, with the Nigeria striker netting all three goals in Galatasaray’s 3-0 victory over Ajax in Amsterdam. Osimhen moved to six goals this season in Europe’s elite club competition, one more than Harry Kane, Kylian Mbappe and Erling Haaland. The Istanbul club signed Osimhen to a permanent deal from SSC Napoli in the summer for a record transfer fee in the Turkish League reportedly worth US$86 million. The 26-year-old striker needed less than 20 minutes to complete his first hat-trick in the competition. He headed in the opener in the
An amateur soccer league organized by farmers, students and factory workers in rural China has unexpectedly drawn millions of fans and inspired big cities to form their own, raising hopes China can grow talent from the ground up and finally become a global force. The nation of 1.4 billion people has about 200 million soccer fans, more than any other country, but it has failed to build world-class teams, partly due to a top-down approach where clubs pick players from a very small pool of prescreened candidates. The professional game is marred by a history of fixed matches, corruption, and dismal performances,
LIKE FINE WINE: Thirty-eight-year-old Djokovic won his 101st title of his career in Athens, becoming the oldest tournament winner since Ken Roswell, 44, in 1977 Elena Rybakina on Saturday clinched her biggest title since Wimbledon in 2022, defeating world No. 1 Aryna Sabalenka 6-3, 7-6 (7/0) at the WTA Finals in Riyadh. The world No. 6 put on yet another serving masterclass and was at her returning best as she became the first Kazakh and the first player representing an Asian country to lift the WTA Finals singles trophy. Having gone 3-0 in round-robin play, Rybakina earned a record US$5.235 million and would finish the year ranked No. 5 in the world. “It’s been an incredible week, I honestly didn’t expect any result, and to go so far,
RSS